


Squaring the Circle As Time Goes By

by BardicRaven



Category: As Time Goes By
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Lost Time, Philosophy, Roommates, Second Chances, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lionel & Sandy have thoughts on their lives, past & present, then share them over a friendly evening's drink in the Pargetter living rom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Squaring the Circle As Time Goes By

**Author's Note:**

> There. That's better, says Yule Goat, patting a much-improved version of this story, which came together obediently after reading your wonderfully generous gift. See what a little kindness can get you? :-)
> 
> (For anyone else who'd like to know what this Yule Goat is talking about go here - http://community.livejournal.com/shelfics/41099.html and read. And shower the Wonderful Recipient w/glowing comments. And like that. :-)
> 
> Jolly good stuff, I say, and should be required reading for all Yule Goats! :-D)
> 
> And now... on to the story!

He wonders what he's doing here sometimes, how he can possibly make up for one simple, small, yet achingly large mistake, made all those years ago and repeated, like a filmstrip of stupidity, for thirty-eight years.

He knows he can't, not really, and if he ever needs proof, all he has to do is look around at the people and situations surrounding him. At Jean, thirty-eight years older, grey hair in the mirror, but forever young in his mind's eye. At Judith, product of a marriage made because he could not make himself take a chance and risk looking foolish. And even at Sandy, representative as she is of all that Jean has accomplished without him.

He'd dabbled, briefly, with the notion of somehow erasing the years by responding to Judith's flirting, before realizing that dating the daughter was never going to erase the sins he'd committed against her mother, against Time.

He looks around sometimes and wonders how he's supposed to fit in to all of this. How he's supposed to contribute, when all he has is a failed lecture tour and a book that's going nowhere fast, despite Alistair's peppy pronouncements.

But he stays anyway, even when he feels like a fifth wheel, because this is where his heart is, where it was all along, truth to tell. He can admit that now, and the occasional moments of looking around and feeling the stranger are simply his penance for youthful pride.

And he pays the price gladly for what he hopes his future will hold.

So when Sandy bangs the door open one evening in an uncharacteristic fit of pique and asks him how he manages, and if he ever feels the stranger here, he'll say yes. And he'll explain why he stays, and without actually saying so, also explain that while they may be comrades in arms in this fight to fit in at this middle class row house in Holland Park, they will never be anything more than friends, for all his occasional remarks about her legs. He admires her as one might admire a work of art – dispassionately and from a distance. Nothing more.

Because he's not going to make that mistake again – substituting another for the one his heart truly desires. Beyond all expectation, he's found another chance, and this one he's determined to see through to its end, whatever that end may be.

***********  
It had been that sort of a day: people, phones, computers, all contributing in one way or another to the general meanness of the world, and seemingly in competition to see who could be the worst.

By the time the end of the day had rolled around, she'd been more than glad to hear of other appointments that would keep Jean &amp; Judy from going straight home.

She could use a stiff drink and some solitude.

Well, it wouldn't be solitude exactly. Lionel was likely to be there, but in some ways it was almost the same thing. His calm, steady manner was a welcome counterpoint to the rush of feminine emotion she had surrounding her every day.

Not that she'd ever try to take it any further. Besides being painfully aware that she lived under the Pargetter roof, she also wasn't Judy, looking for a white knight to carry her off on his white charger. She liked her blokes a lot more down-to-earth, and frankly a lot closer to her own age as well.

But precisely because she did see Lionel as more of a friend/father figure, she could talk to him in ways that she didn't feel comfortable talking to her boyfriends.

Besides, the guys she went out with knew where they fit into the grand scheme of things, where they wanted to go and who they wanted to be, even if it seemed like the answers to both were not far and not much.

So as she banged open the front door in an uncharacteristic fit of pique, it was Lionel that she planned to talk to, Lionel she planned to ask if, in his own way, he ever felt as awkwardly outside both the household and his life as she did in hers, and if he ever worried that life was passing him by.

Because she does wonder what the future will bring for her. If she will stay a secretary all her life, and if she even wants to. If she'll ever find the right person to share her life with, one who shares her hopes and dreams, and wants to walk the same road.

From what she knows of Lionel's life, she suspects he will understand.

 

***********  
"Bad day, Sandy?" Lionel inquired, looking up from his newspaper.

Sandy flopped into a chair on the other side of the room from the large green leather monster that was now Lionel's designated chair.

After a pause to catch her mental breath, she managed "The worst.", before falling back into a drained silence.

"Drink?"

"Yes, please." Lionel went over to the drink counter and started pouring out. The appearance of relief revived her enough to go into exasperated detail. "I don't know which was the worst – the client who kept looking down my dress all the time he was waiting to see Jean, the computer that kept crashing just as I was getting close to the end of the monthly accounts, or Jean and Judy snapping at me every minute they weren't snapping at each other."

He handed her the glass in silence, then went back to his newspaper. She drank gratefully, then set the glass down on the table with a little 'clink'.

"Lionel?"

"Yes?" he said from behind his newspaper.

"Do you ever worry about not fitting in?"

He put down the paper and stared at her. "To what? My trousers? Quite a lot. Must be all the custard tarts."

She laughed a little. "No. Here." She gestured at the room around them.

"Oh, that."

"Yes. THAT."

He considered for a moment before replying. "Yes, I do, from time to time."

"What do you do about it?"

More silence. "I consider the alternatives. You see, I'd rather be a part of this household now, even though I'll always be outside a part of it, than to be outside the whole of it. I had thirty-eight years of that and that was more than enough."

"Do you ever worry about life passing you by? Because of that?"

"Sometimes." Penetrating gaze. "Look, why are you asking me these questions?"

"I've just been wondering lately, where my life is going to, and days like today make me wonder all the more."

"Ah." Lionel nodded. "Sandy, your life is just that. Yours. I can't tell you how to live your life and I won't. You've got to come to your own conclusions."

"Besides," Lionel rose and began to stalk about the room, pacing to match his words. "My life has been a lot different than yours. I'm not sure the comparisons would be valid anyway."

"I'd still like to hear them." She leaned forward in her chair.

He stopped abruptly and faced her. "All right. I'll tell you. Yes, I do wonder if my life is passing me by. I wonder every day that I sit here and have no idea about how I'm supposed to provide for myself or for this household. I wonder with every day that goes by if that was the last chance that I had to make a go of it with Jean. I wonder with every moment that passes how I can ever make up for thirty-eight bloody wasted years.

"So, you want some advice? I'll give it to you. Don't waste it."

"It?"

"Time, dreams, whatever. Don't waste it. Try, even if it means falling on your face once in a while. Because you never know when you'll spend thirty-eight years regretting something you didn't go for. And you may not get a second chance."

"You did."

"Did I? Maybe. But I don't count on it. And you shouldn't either."

Sandy sat in thoughtful silence for a while. "Thank you, Lionel."

"I hope that helped."

"It did actually." The sounds of the door opening and women's voices in the hall brought an abrupt end to the moment. "Sounds like Jean and Judy are home."

"So it does."

"I think I'd better go put the kettle on."

"Right." Lionel picked up the newspaper and began to read.

Sandy got up and made her way towards the kitchen as Jean and Judy came into the living room, talking about their day. Somehow, the chatter didn't bother her as much as it had before. Smiling, she put the kettle on for tea. Just the thing to end a frustrating day and bring the promise of a better tomorrow.

"Sandy?" Jean came into the kitchen in that bustling, yet faintly-absent-minded way she had. "Oh, there you are."

Yes, indeed, here she was. And right now, she knew that this was where she was meant to be.


End file.
